Israel PM tries to shift focus from Islamic State to Iran

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday tried to shift the spotlight away from the Islamic State (IS) militant group and back to Iran, warning the United Nations that a nuclear-armed Tehran would pose a far greater threat than IS.

IS seizure of large swaths of Syria and Iraq and its killings of civilians and soldiers have dominated discussions during five days of speeches at the United Nations General Assembly podium and on the sidelines.

But Netanyahu described Iran, IS and Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip as part of a single team, comparing them all to Germany’s Nazis.

“The Nazis believed in a master race; the militant Islamists believe in a master faith,” Netanyahu said in his speech at the annual gathering of the 193-nation assembly in New York. “They just disagree who among them will be the master of the master faith.”

“Make no mistake, ISIS (Islamic State) must be defeated,” Netanyahu added. “But to defeat ISIS and leave Iran as a threshold nuclear power is to win the battle and lose the war.”

Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, speaks at the 69th United Nations General Assembly on September 29, in New York City – AFP

“It’s one thing to confront militant Islamists on pickup trucks armed with Kalashnikov rifles. It’s another thing to confront militant Islamists armed with weapons of mass destruction,” he said.

After Monday’s speeches, an Iranian delegate took the floor to respond to Netanyahu’s “laughable” speech, saying he “tried in vain to wash his hands of this most recent bloodbath in Gaza,” wrongfully equating the Muslim world “with the ISIS terrorist group and propagating Iranophobia and Islamophobia.”

By describing Iran, IS and Hamas as part of the same team, Netanyahu played on doubts among US lawmakers about the wisdom of President Barack Obama’s decision to engage with Tehran after the 2013 election of President Hassan Rouhani, a soft-spoken pragmatist, to resolve the 12-year-old nuclear standoff between Iran and the West.

“You know, to say that Iran doesn’t practice terrorism, is like saying Derek Jeter never played shortstop for the New York Yankees,” he said.

Asked if Washington agreed with Netanyahu that Iran, IS, Hamas, Hezbollah are part of a joint Muslim effort to seize control of the world, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said, “We would not agree with that characterisation, no.”

These issues will undoubtedly come up during Obama’s meeting with Netanyahu in Washington on Wednesday.

“Iran’s nuclear military capabilities must be fully dismantled,” Netanyahu said. He added that the goal of a charm offensive by Iran’s “smooth talking president and foreign minister” was to get international sanctions lifted “and remove the obstacles to Iran’s path to the bomb.”

“The question before us is whether militant Islam will have the power to realise its unbridled ambitions. There is one place where that could soon happen – the Islamic State of Iran.”

He twice referred to the “Islamic State of Iran,” which would appear to be a deliberate play on the country’s official name – the Islamic Republic of Iran – and Islamic State, which is often referred to as ISIL, ISIS or IS.

Netanyahu referred mockingly to Rouhani’s speech to the assembly last week, in which he accused the West and its allies of nurturing the group. “Iran’s President Rouhani stood here last week and shed crocodile tears over what he called the globalisation of terrorism. Maybe he should spare us these phony tears and have a word instead with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards,” he said.

Rouhani said he supported efforts to combat IS, a Sunni militant group that views the predominantly Shiite Iran as heretical, though he said it should be handled by the region, not countries outside the Middle East.

Iran and six world powers held 10 days of talks on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders at UN headquarters in New York City but made little progress in overcoming deep disagreements on issues such as the future scope of Tehran’s nuclear programme and the speed of lifting sanctions.

The talks involve Iran, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. They are aimed at getting a long-term agreement that would gradually lift sanctions against Tehran in exchange for curbs on its atomic programme.

The two sides are expected to meet again in Europe in the next two weeks, Iranian and Western officials say. Speaking about the talks, US Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns told reporters in Washington, “It’s no secret that the gaps that remain in the negotiations are quite significant right now.”

Netanyahu’s strident critique of Iran may be a preview of the hard line he will take in Washington. He has repeatedly warned Obama not to make concessions in the nuclear talks.

On the topic of the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, he expressed his support for a “historic compromise” with the Palestinians that would bring peace and stability for the Israeli people and the region. But he offered no new details of what the compromise would envisage.